Death Visits the Claypool Hotel

7/25/2024

By M.P. Pellicer | Stranger Than Fiction Stories
The Claypool Hotel in Indianapolis once received powerful politicians and even President Lincoln in 1861, when it was the Bates House. However in the years that followed it could not escape the stigma of murder that stained its luxurious and upscale reputation.

Maoma Little Ridings (1910-1943)

The Bates House built in 1852, was demolished in 1901 and the Claypool Hotel was built in its place. It had eight floors and 500 rooms.

World War II was raging, and 33-year-old Corporal Maoma Little Ridings checked into Room 729 at 4 p.m. to enjoy her weekend leave. Four hours later her mutilated, semi-nude body was found sprawled on the floor. She was dressed in her bra, nylon hose and a brown slip pulled up to her waist.

Maoma hailed from Warm Springs, Georgia from the family who had established Warm Springs, which had formerly been named Bullochsville. Her father a lawyer and real estate agent had died in 1925, but her mother Mae collapsed when she received news of her daughter's death.

Maoma had been a therapy nurse at Warm Springs Infantile Paralysis Foundation from 1927 to 1931. It was here that she tended future president Roosevelt, who was then governor of New York when he came for treatment at the center. They had become so close she would call him "Uncle Frank".

She married Lawrence Ridings in 1931, but after several years together they had divorced and he went to serve in the army overseas. Maoma had worked as an auditor for the FHA in Washington before joining the WAC in February 1943. She had just been promoted to corporal.

The Claypool was 25 miles away from Camp Atterbury, and she had stayed frequently at this hotel in the last two months before she died. Sometimes she was alone, other times with another WAC nurse. The hotel was within a 100-mile radius of five Army and Navy camps making it a center for service people.

Corp. Samuel Kaplan also from Camp Atterbury who was staying in Room 756, later told police that some time between 6 and 8 p.m. he received an anonymous telephone call from someone who said that a WAC was screaming on the seventh floor, and the police should be called. He telephoned the desk. Later the hotel switchboard operator said other guests complained of hearing a soldier and a woman arguing in another room.

Maoma Little Ridings was a WAC nurse murdered in her room at Claypool Hotel

When the employees went to the room, it was empty and the soldier had checked out.

The corporal's body was found by Lillian McNamara, a housekeeper who said that the body was nude below the waist. Part of the clothing was on the bed, the shoes on the floor and the rest of her clothing was in the closet. Her throat, the left side of her face, arms and wrists were cut with a broken whiskey bottle found at the scene. Some believed it was an attempt to make the murder look like a suicide.

The fifth of whiskey was later found to have been purchased by Maoma herself when she got off at the bus depot, but she did not have any alcohol in her system. Strangely the bottom of the whiskey bottle was missing and never found. Other items that were never located were her skirt and the room key.

Instead of the local police or the military police being called, the assistant manager told two Air Force officers from Stout Field who were on the first floor to come to Room 729, which was in a lonely spot of the hotel and flanked by two staircases. When they saw the scene of the body lying on the floor between the bed and the door, which by then had been draped with a sheet by the housekeeper, they told the manager they had no authority to handle a murder investigation.

The Army immediately sent detectives, but city authorities were also investigating and interviewing personnel and guests.

Within a day the police were looking for a mysterious black-haired woman, who had been sitting on the bed smoking a cigarette when a bellhop came to deliver soda. He described how she was wearing a black dress with a white collar, a black hat and nose veil.

Whiskey bottle found at murder scene

She was also seen later in conversation with a uniformed policeman in a service elevator. A hotel employee overheard her say to the officer, "You better go up to a room on the seventh floor. There's a woman dead there. She may have committed suicide, or she may have been murdered". The officer replied, "You'd better not stick your neck out; you might be into trouble". He had then gotten off on the seventh floor, and the employee took the woman down to the first floor. The local police had no report of this woman or the policeman described by the employee.

Detectives would go on to interview Ruth Hoover, Maoma's friend and once a WAC, who told them that prior to this last stay at the Claypool, Maoma had partied with a crowd at the Severin Hotel until she was asked to pay for a bed, which broke down during a "gay party." She argued with the room clerk and left without paying for it. She said the weekend parties were attended by both enlisted men and officers, which were a continual round of drinking and merrymaking.

Ruth said, "We'd run all over the hotel, from one room to another, and then we'd go out and eat and then come back and start all over again. Maoma had only one fault, she like to drink too much." Ruth did not accompany Maoma on that fateful weekend since she had resigned from the service.

She also told police, "I don't believe there's a woman in this picture. Ridings didn't like women — she liked men. She was a happy-go-lucky girl and just out for a good time. I don't see why anyone would want to kill her. I can't understand that she ordered six cokes before she was killed. She usually drank her whisky straight with a chaser, and I've never known her to drink out of a bottle. It seems to me six cokes was alot for her to order unless she was expecting company."

Corporal Kaplan was also interviewed by the authorities since none of the hotel employees could recall his phone call to the desk. However the "woman in black" seen in the service elevator was identified as Mary Breitback, 25, who had been visiting Kaplan. However the identity of the woman in black visiting with Maoma remained unidentified.

Sgt Davis with Wolfington on right c.1943

An autopsy found that Maoma had died from a blow to the head over her left eye and loss of blood. The authorities would not clarify if she had been raped or if a robbery had taken place. The medical examiner said the cut to her neck did not sever the jugular, and had not been made by the broken bottle.

The next twist into the investigation was when 22-year-old bellhop Robert Wolfington who had come to the room to deliver ice was held on a charge of vagrancy, when indeed he was being considered a suspect. He had failed to show up for work, claiming he had to get his uniform cleaned. Review of the record's sheet for the day of the murder reflected no request for ice to Room 729, which is the reason he had presumably gone to the room. The police described him as being intoxicated and "emotionally unstable" when being questioned. He was unable to account for all his time on the day of the murder.

Wolfington was estranged from his wife and had been medically discharged from the Navy a few months before because he suffered from seizures. He had attempted suicide in July 1942 by ingesting lye, and stayed at the hospital for six weeks.

He told police that when he came to the room with another ice delivery around 6 p.m., the door was slightly ajar and a voice from the bathroom told him to leave it on the table and take a .25 cent tip that was on the dresser. Another bellhop Albert Bayne Jr., was the one who had seen the lady in black. He delivered six bottles of soft drink, and some ice to the room 45 minutes after Maoma checked in. She had paid him $1 for the bill, and also gave him a .25 tip. He would be the last person to see Maoma alive before her body was discovered 3 hours later.

Later detectives found a blood clot on the closet floor, indicating that the body might have been in there for a while, possibly when Wolfington arrived and heard the voice of the woman in the bathroom.

Army ad for WAC

Once the county coroner confirmed that Maoma Riding had been sexually assaulted the police started looking for suspects beside the "lady in black" seen in the room. Lt. Noel Jones in charge of the detective investigation was the first to propose that the mysterious lady seen in the room was a man disguised as a woman. Later it was clarified that it was not clear if Maoma had engaged in consensual sex or had been raped, only that she had been intimate with a man before her death.

Many tips came to the police, but most didn't lead anywhere. A man's blood-stained coat and slack were dropped off at a local laundry by a young woman, who said she would come back for them later. The stains were discovered after she had left. Later these items were identified as the property of a war worker who had a nose bleed.

Once the police found only .46 cents in the victim's purse, robbery was also considered a motive. Officer and others who knew Maoma said she was also known to carry large sums of money.

By September 2, police were considering the crime was possibly committed by more than one person in "a moment of blind fury".

Robert De Armond a convicted child rapist was a suspect of Maoma's murder but was eventually released

On September 4, Maoma Riding was laid to rest in her hometown of Warm Springs, Georgia.

The following day police arrested Robert De Armond, 40, a kitchen worker who in 1934 had been convicted of attempting to rape a 10-year-old girl. The authorities had good reason to suspect De Armond's possible involvement in the murder.

Robert Ora De Armond had once been a teacher at Brookville Township, Indiana as far back as 1928. He had married Lillian Davison in 1926, and in 1934 when an affidavit had been filed against him for attempted rape (of a child) he was the father of two young girls. In 1936, his wife divorced him.

He was convicted and sent to the Michigan City State Penitentiary. In 1939 he was transferred to the Central Insane Hospital at Indianapolis. Then in 1941, he stole a vehicle after escaping from the asylum. Authorities at the hospital reported to police that he was dangerous. The police got a tip he was near his home in Laurel, and arrested him. He was being transported to the jail in Brookville when he made a lunge from the back seat of the vehicle. He had brought his manacled hands down across the sheriff's head who was riding in the back with him, and hooked the handcuffs over the knob on the steering wheel, causing the sheriff to lose control of the car. It overturned several times down a steep embankment. The occupants including De Armond suffered only minor injuries.

It turned out he returned to Laurel because he was hunting his ex-wife with the intention of killing her. Considering his criminal history it's surprising he was paroled in April 1943 from the Central State Hospital for the Insane, which is when he went to work at the Clayburn Hotel. At night he worked at the Riverside Amusement Park, which considering he was a convicted pedophile was the last place he should have been employed at. Since he had reported to work at 7:30 p.m. at the park, and Maoma was killed about 8:30 p.m., he was released.

Dr. Max A. Bahr the superintendent at the hospital, who had authorized his release on parole said he showed "marked sexual tendencies," but responded to treatment in a fit manner for release, and he was being supervised by his father.

This prognosis turned out to be wrong. In October, 1943 he was being returned to prison by a parole office for violating his parole. While at a restaurant in Lebanon he jerked away from the officer and fled down the railroad tracks. He was recaptured when he was found hiding in watchman's shanty. He died in 1982, age 79.

Bloodstained clothes dropped off at a local laundry around the time of Maoma's murder

Within the next few days of the murder, both Wolfington and De Armond were freed and the search for the woman in black continued. The same housekeeper who had found the body, found that a screen had been forcibly removed from a seventh-floor window that opened onto the fire escape. It had been opened with sufficient force to sliver the wood frame around it. She quit soon after this last discovery.

The police also investigated a 19-year-old chambermaid who had worked on the seventh floor, who had suddenly quit her job two days before.

The prosecutors had concluded that Maoma had known her killer. They based this conclusion on the fact that the hotel room door would automatically lock, and the murderer either had a key or had been allowed entry by the victim. They surmised that her attacker had struck her across the head, raped her and then panicked and cut her body in an effort to make it look like a suicide. They also concluded that the room which was located in a remote part of the seventh floor, adjacent to two stairways had facilitated the murderer to enter and leave without being seen.

Seven days after the crime police still had failed to apprehend the murderer. They were checking the trash behind the hotel when they found a discharge notice from the army, along with a masonic emblem with the same name. This clue was speedily shelved, when a letter part in code, was found in the chandelier of Room 729. It was found after the prosecutors and deputies started using the room as a command center while they conducted their investigation. It was later discarded as it had been written by a shoe salesman who had been filling out an order, made a mistake, and had thrown it over his shoulder where it landed in the chandelier.

Even a spiritualist got in on the act when she called police, and told them she was close to a solution but her contact with the spirit world was suddenly broken.

The prosecutors told the newspapers that they were looking to find a mystery man who was an acquaintance of Maoma, and who had visited the room shortly before her murder. Later Corporal Emmanuel Fisher was found to have come to the hotel, called several times to the room from the lobby, and got no answer until a detective answered the phone. He hung up thinking that Maoma decided to meet another man for a date.

As the police investigated Maoma's background they received information that she had a divorced friend who frequently dressed in black who she would party with during her weekends in the city, but they were unable to locate this woman, and the investigation came to a standstill until October 1944.

William Luallen an ex-con tried to implicate his wife Winona Kidd in the murder of Maoma Ridings

William Luallen an Indiana state convict confessed to the killing and initially implicated his ex-wife, Wynona Kidd Luallen who he said was the "lady in black". He said the murder had taken place after a wild party in the room. Supposedly he had arrived at the hotel room, and found both women drinking and smoking marijuana. Later his wife became jealous and attacked Ridings, at which time he left the hotel, but heard the sound of breaking glass.

His wife who had been under arrest in Tennessee for burglary charges was eventually cleared of suspicion, as it was found she was working in Knoxville at the time of the murder.

Luallen's confession was eventually dismissed. He was one of four persons who had made a similar admission. Three of them were found to be mentally unbalanced. Luallen was serving ten to twenty years at Indiana State Prison for various burglaries.

The years went by and every time a suspect was apprehended for a similar murder in Indianapolis, he was checked as to see if he might be the murderer of Maoma Ridings.

Until this day, the person who killed the corporal and the mysterious lady in black, who possibly knew who killed Maoma or who was complicit in her murder have yet to be identified. The Claypool Hotel was razed in 1969. However before this took place another gruesome murder was committed in July, 1954 in Room 665.

Dorothy Poore was another beauty killed at the Clayburn Hotel in 1954

The lingerie clad body of 19-year-old Dorothy Poore was found stuffed into a dresser drawer. She had been a car hop living in Clinton and had come to Indianapolis looking for work. She had been dead several days when she was discovered by a maid who was attracted by the smell of the putrefying remains.

The drawer measured 48 inches by 24 inches and approximately 10 inches deep. Dr. Storms the medical examiner said it was a "terrific task" which he believed took two persons to jam the body into the drawer.

Dorothy's clothes were found in the dark recesses of the closet by the water pipes and air vents, which came into the room.

Firemen with gas masks took the body from the drawer. The coroner estimated that she had been dead approximately thirty-six hours when she was found, and that the heat wave experienced in the city that summer had aided in the rapid decomposition, and produced the horrid stench that caused the entire sixth floor to be evacuated.

Air conditioning was being installed in the hotel, but the sixth floor had not been worked on yet.

Victor Hale Lively c.1954

The hotel manager said the room had last been occupied by a man who registered as John O'Shea from New York, who it turned out gave a fictitious name and address. After the murder was discovered he disappeared.

The police believed that Dorothy Poore had been lured to the hotel with a promise of a job, and then suffocated with a pillow once she was inside the room.

Dorothy was supposed to take a Civil Service exam the following Thursday for a typist's job. Her mother Lilly worked as a waitress and on occasion Dorothy helped there, but she also worked at the Mills Barbecue. She had come to Indianapolis from Clinton with hopes of a better job.

Dorothy Poore was last seen going up in the Claypool elevator shortly before midnight. Her bed at the Lorraine Hotel had not been slept in since Thursday night.

John O'Shea was described as a very short, blond man. He was well-dressed and estimated to be in his mid-30s. When two maids came to the room on Friday July 16, he was sitting on the bed and pointed out a spot of blood on the bed, and told them he had sinus trouble and his nose bled.

One of the maids Helen Curry said that O'Shea "seemed wild-eyed when we went in there. He said he wanted the room cleaned up 'because my mother is coming to visit me.'" Ironically O'Shea which would turn out to be named Lively, in reality had lost his mother Sadie Lively 3 months before in April, 1954. His father died in 1951.

Dorothy Poore's body inside the drawer c.1954

The police got a break on the case when Charles Griffo a reporter for The Indianapolis Star theorized that John O'Shea had registered at another hotel under his real name. It was discovered that a Victor Lively stayed at the Kirkwood Hotel using a slightly different address then the one he used at the Claypool. A comparison of the handwriting proved it was the same person.

On July 22, a tentative ID was made on John O'Shea. He was believed to be a former Indianapolis laundry worker with a Texas drawl. A vice-president of the Star Laundry and Dry Cleaners told police that a man known as Victor Lively had worked at his establishment for about a week three years before. He told police, "The guy was crazy about women... would whistle and yell at them as they walked down the street."

On the day Lively checked into the Claypool Hotel, a woman with circles under eyes and dressed in a green checkered dress came twice looking for him. It was believed later this woman would procure prostitutes for men staying in the different hotels, possibly she was in cahoots with a taxi driver who used the code name of Flag.

Dorothy Poore's mother and grandmother c.1954

Lively was arrested on July 23 outside of St. Louis. He didn't resist but carried a .32 caliber gun wrapped in a newspaper. Shortly after his arrest Lively confessed to the murder, and said it took place after an argument ensued because Dorothy demanded gin and he only had whiskey. She had taunted him, they had sex and then she started to scream, and he blacked out. He said that he couldn't remember what happened, but it was daytime when he came to. He found her passed out on the bed, and when he tried to revive her with a cold towel, she started gurgling and he panicked when she died. He then changed his story and said that he had killed after she refused his sexual advances. He tried to rape her three times before strangling her.

Despite his claims of panicking, Lively had paid the hotel bill until Monday, giving him sufficient time to leave town before the body was discovered.

Ironically a few days before Dorothy Poore was strangled, the room where Maoma Reading was killed had been remodeled, which included tearing up the murder room and connecting it with adjoining quarters.

Employees from both hotels identified Victor Lively as the man who had called himself John O'Shea.

It turned out that Lively had hitchhiked to East St. Louis on July 1, and went to work for a roofing contractor. He was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, but grew up in Beaumont, Texas the foster son of Jack and Sadie Lively. In 1949, Alma Lee Lively sued for a divorce from Victor Lively. This was the end of one of his six marriages, whether the rest were common law is unknown. He had fathered a child with one of his wives. Around those years he worked as a rough neck in the Texas oil fields.

Since mid-July when Lively had checked into the Kirkwood Hotel 6 blocks away from the Claypool, he had been on an incessant hunt for girls.

A reporter posed as a newly arrived country girl, and found she was propositioned various times within hours

Within days of the murder of Dorothy Poore, Carolyn Pickering a reporter for The Indianapolis Star posed as a country girl named Marilyn King, who had just come to the city for better opportunities. She arrived at the bus terminal around 6 p.m. and within two hours had been: propositioned by at least six men; lured into registering at the York Hotel; had refreshments at a restaurant bar by a man who promised "to do right by you"; was shadowed by a well-dressed man who tried to arrange a meeting later in the Claypool Hotel; and was told by a truck drive who tried to pet, telling her "everybody does a little petting in public in the city."

She said this occurred at the Traction Terminal which was full of policemen.

During a 20 minute walk down South Illinois Street which was the city's skid row, three drivers and a motorcyclist pulled to the curb and offered her a ride. This included a man old enough to be her grandfather, who wanted to have a drink with her.

A half block away police stood talking to two street walkers.

Her experience, which she wrote up for the newspaper, made it evident what Dorothy Poore had encountered when she came to Indianapolis.

Firemen extracting Dorothy Poore's body from the dresser drawer c.1954

Lillian Dancy, Dorothy's grandmother told police and reporters that Dorothy was cautioned by a fortune teller to stay away from Indianapolis. "She faced death upstairs in a building, and she was never to go back to Indianapolis. She was going to meet a person with light coloring that would grab her by the head and take her pocketbook."

During the investigation the authorities in Indianapolis referred to the fact that Lively was an offender involved in many sex cases, and often had lured girls to hotel rooms. Lively told police he was a "contact man" for a white slave ring, who was tasked with seducing girls and bringing them into prostitution rings.

The police had more trouble finding the woman "Ruth" who was the companion that came with Dorothy when she visited the murder room. She was described as a tall woman, with large breasts, reddish brown hair, which she combed to the side to cover a scar over the right side of her forehead. She also had a scar just above her left knee.

Lively went to trial in November. On December 2, 1954 after four hours of deliberation the jury found him guilty. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in the Indiana State Penitentiary. The prosecutor had demanded the electric chair.

The dresser was brought to the courtroom, and Lively is reflected in the mirror talking to his lawyer

During the trial Lively identified "Ruth" as Grace Lawson, 26, a burlesque dancer. When she was found she denied any knowledge of the case.

In 1955, Griffo the reporter who had helped the police was awarded the Pall Mall Big Story award for his role in solving the case.

In 1956, the Claypool was robbed at gunpoint of $2,520. The area of the Claypool Hotel had become seedier since the years it had been the prestigious Bates House, which welcomed politicians including the president of the United States.

In 1967, a fire started in one of the closets, forcing the hotel to close its door—two years later it was razed.

Lively was paroled on July 25, 1980 and died in February, 1981.

In 2001, a man paid $5 for the brass drawer pulls from the dresser drawer where Dorothy Poore was stuffed. The auction was held by the daughter of the hotel's longtime general manager Bryan Karr. His wife had kept the drawer pulls as a macabre memento. The bidder specialized in architectural antiques.

Present day the site of the Claypool is the Embassy Suites Downtown. The seventh floor has a reputation for being haunted. Employees complain of feelings of being watched, and just an overall feeling of dread. Its anyone's guess who's causing those unnerving moments, but we can think of two.

Sources - Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph, The Indianapolis Star, Anderson Herald, The Indianapolis News